Preliminary tax collection data for the January-March quarter of 2012 show further growth in overall state tax collections, as well as for income and sales tax revenues, for the ninth consecutive quarter. However, the growth in tax collections has been softening in the last three quarters. We will provide a full report on the January-March period after Census Bureau data for the quarter are available.

The Rockefeller Institute's compilation of preliminary data from 47 states shows collections from major tax sources increased by 4.1 percent in nominal terms in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same quarter of 2011. Tax collections now have been rising for nine straight quarters, following the five quarters of declines that were brought on by the Great Recession.

Among 47 early reporting states, 41 states reported gains while six states reported declines in overall tax revenue collections during the first quarter of 2012. Personal income taxes showed a growth of 3.2 percent, a considerable slowdown from the second and third quarters of 2011, when year-over-year growth was 17.1 and 10.3 percent respectively. Sales taxes reported relatively strong growth at 5.0 percent and corporate income taxes increased 2.2 in the first quarter of 2012 (see Table 1).

Table 2 shows state-by-state figures for the change in major tax revenues during the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same quarter a year earlier. North Dakota and Illinois reported the largest increases in overall tax collections, at 29.7 and 24.1 percent respectively. According to preliminary data, seven states reported double-digit growth in total tax collections, 11 states in personal income taxes and six states in sales tax revenues. Among the states reporting declines in overall tax collections, California reported the largest decline in terms of dollar value of $0.9 billion or 3.6 percent. Such decline is mostly attributable to expiration of temporary tax increases.

Overall, state tax revenues are showing improvement, though the pace of growth continues to slow from its peak in the second quarter of 2011.

Table 1: State Taxes Showed Continued Growth in the First Quarter of 2012

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, at the University at Albany, is the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. The Institute conducts fiscal and programmatic research on American state and local governments. Visit our Web site at www.rockinst.org.